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Thomas Breen :: New Haven Independent

Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven (right) and Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury (left)

One week before his next budget proposal is due, 30 of Gov. Ned Lamonts fellow Democrats challenged him Wednesday to embrace what he strongly opposes tax hikes on the rich and lifting spending limits to invest billions in those most hurt by the pandemic.

The Recovery Champions coalition not only urged the governor to expand health care for the poor and pump hundreds of millions of dollars more into struggling municipalities but also pledged to fight for these ideals in late spring when Lamont likely needs their votes to pass a budget.

The progressive Democrats outlined more than $4 billion in revenue-raising options for Lamont to consider all aimed at the states highest earners and major corporations.

That doesnt mean all of the options would be necessary, they said. But the goal is to raise enough not only to enhance core services amid the coronavirus pandemic but also to finance major tax relief for low- and middle-income households.

Extreme conditions call for extreme measures, said Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, who co-chairs the legislatures Labor Committee. It is time for us to think outside of the box.

The most recent election showed people really want a different direction, they want fairness, they want equity, said Rep. Quentin Phipps, D-Middletown, co-chairman of the legislatures Black and Puerto Rican Caucus.

Fairness begins, the coalition argued, with reforming the tax system in a state marked by some of the most extreme income and wealth inequality in the nation.

The single-largest revenue raising option they offered Lamont would leave Connecticut with the highest state income tax rate in the Northeast and the second-highest in the nation, behind only Californias top rate of 13.3%, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit fiscal think-tank.

Couples more than $800,000 per year, and individuals topping $500,000, would pay a top rate of 8.82%, up from the 6.99% they currently pay.

And couples making more than $1.2 million annually, and singles exceeding $1 million, would pay a top rate of almost $12.7%.

The coalition projects this could raise as much as $2 billion annually in new revenue.

It also pitched a 5% surcharge on capital gains earnings from Connecticuts richest households, which would generate about $850 million more in state income tax receipts.

Other proposals included:

All of these ideas and particularly the income tax hikes are likely non-starters for Lamont. His budget office declined to comment.

Raising taxes on the wealthy would prompt them to flee Connecticut, according to the governor, who has said recently that it would be a particularly bad move now, while we have the [economic] wind to our back.

Progressives have chastised Lamont, a wealthy Greenwich businessman, for that last remark, noting that while stocks have fully recovered and grown in value since an early pandemic dip, huge chunks of Connecticuts economy are hurting badly.

About 190,000 individuals continue to receive weekly unemployment benefits. By comparison, Connecticut lost 120,000 jobs in the last recession, which ran from December 2007 through mid-2009.

Connecticuts hospitality sector in general, and restaurants in particular, remain fragile.

And cities and towns estimated last summer theyve lost more about $400 million in revenue due to the pandemic.

COVID certainly exacerbated the inequalities, exacerbated the challenges that we face, said Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, the other co-chairwoman of the Labor Committee.

State Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury

A fair recovery, added Rep. Kate Farrar, D-West Hartford, will reduce racial and economic inequality and leave no one behind in a strong economy.

To help close that gap, the panel suggested a one-time state stimulus payment of $500 to the unemployed, which would cost the state about $75 million.

Long-term, recurring relief would come by bolstering the existing property tax and earned income tax credits within Connecticuts income tax system, the coalition said. These measures would give low- and middle-income households an extra $220 million per year.

The coalition also called for an additional $900 million per year in aid to cities and towns, with about 60% of that directed to local school districts, which Kushner noted have faced many increased costs since the pandemic began.

And another $550 million would be invested annually in health care and social services. Eligibility for Medicaid and other subsidized health care would be expanded, with additional funding channeled to nursing homes and nonprofit social service agencies.

There isnt close to enough room for these additional funds under Connecticuts statutory spending cap, which tries to keep growth in most appropriations in line with increases statewide in personal income or inflation.

But the cap system can be legally exceeded with a 60% vote of the House and Senate. Porter said Lamont who has said the next budget will remain under the cap should reverse himself and declare a fiscal emergency.

Democrats, who hold majorities in the House and Senate, werent expecting much if any Republican support when the time comes to adopt the next state budget this spring.

But if progressive Democrats and Lamont dont find middle ground when the time comes to vote, it will be hard for the legislature to adopt any budget.

Still, progressive lawmakers said Wednesdays press conference wont be the last time they push for a fairer budget and tax system.

Were committed to being here for the duration, Kushner said.

For us, the emergency is every present, Farrar said. I anticipate us looking to use our voices not just today.

See original here:
Progressive legislators to Lamont: Tax the rich and expand support for poor and middle-class - The CT Mirror

Progressives are feeling pretty good that reformers have gotten major posts on climate and energy and in key financial regulatory agencies such as the SEC (Gary Gensler) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Rohit Chopra). But watch out for whats happening under the radar.

Last Friday, I wrote about how Cass Sunstein was primed to return to a White House job. More than any other person, he was the scourge of progressive regulation when he was head of OIRA under Obama.

Biden and his team promise to do a lot of needed re-regulation. Why on earth bring back Sunstein?

One explanation could be the influence of one Jessica Hertz. She is a longtime protg of Sunstein, both in his days at the University of Chicago and as his counselor when both were at OIRA.

From there, after a stint as deputy counsel for thenVice President Biden, Hertz went on to work as the key house counsel in charge of fending off regulation for Facebook, the number one target for reformers of platform monopolies. And then she got herself a prime job as general counsel in the Biden transition, where she was the ultimate arbiter of ethics and conflict-of-interest issues.

But it gets worse. Hertz was recently named to the post of staff secretary in the Biden administration itself, a powerful role that among other things filters the paperwork flow to the president.

Do you think maybe Hertz is foaming the runway for Sunstein? And who foamed the runway for her?

The Hertz/Sunstein story is part of a larger pattern that deserves much more scrutiny. Just below the good news of progressives leading some agencies is the infiltration of people into hundreds of subcabinet and senior staff posts, either coming directly from Silicon Valley platform monopolies and Wall Street investment banks, or serving as their longtime allies and enablers.

Continue reading here:
Bidens Progressive Appointees: Watch Out Below the Radar - The American Prospect

There are plenty of takeaways from this weeks GameStop/Reddit/Robinhood saga.

For your sake (and mine), I would prefer not to delve into the financial weeds here. Sure, Ive watched The Wolf of Wall Street twice and Ive read 3.5 stories on shorting but that does not a financial wizard make.

The debacle did cause quite a stir on Twitter, though, and thats where my expertise comes in. I have one main piece of advice: Conservatives, stop being so thirsty for progressives praise their hatred of you means youre never going to get it.

When Robinhood stopped its users from trading GameStop stocks, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted that the move was unacceptable.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) retweeted the AOCs statement with the reply, Fully agree.

Many naive onlookers thought this was a rare moment of bipartisan harmony, reaching across the aisle, extending the olive branch, etc.

But alas, it was not to be. Instead, AOC reminded Ted Cruz in her typical drama-queen fashion that she despises him.

I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where theres common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out, she tweeted. Happy to work w/almost any other GOP that arent trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.

As always, AOCs hysterics launched a thousand breathless headlines.

Politico: You almost had me murdered: AOC rebukes Cruzs shared interest in trading oversight. The Cut: AOC tells Ted Cruz to Take a Seat. New York Daily News: AOC torches Cruz for trying to get her killed after he backs push for WallStreet reform.

On its face, her latest accusation is hilariously hypocritical, especially given the Democrats history of violent rhetoric and action.

Cruz did not try to have her murdered. He objected to the electoral votes on Jan. 6, much like, say, Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern in 2017, or then-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in 2001.

Perhaps Sen. Rand Paul can enlighten AOC why blaming politicians for their fringe supporters is a bad idea. Maybe he can start with the story of the Congressional baseball practice and then segue into the time his neighbor broke his ribs while Paul was cutting his lawn in Kentucky.

But my real frustration with this entire back-and-forth is not with AOC.

Its with Ted Cruz.

As Karol Markowicz, a columnist from the New York Post, replied to the seasoned senator: Why tweet that you fully agree with AOC? Who is Ted Cruz trying to impress? She hates you, shes open about it, stop being so thirsty. That goes for every conservative trying to catch AOCs eye. Stop giving her so much power. Enough.

The word thirsty is defined by Urban Dictionary as too eager to get something or desperate.

Now, am I thirsty on Twitter? You bet! In fact, Ive been trying to get verified on the app for years.

But Im the peanut gallery. Ted Cruz is a U.S. senator, a former candidate for president. Doesnt he have bigger fish to fry than bonding with AOC over GameStop?

Between the Keystone Pipeline, the border, coronavirus lockdowns, election integrity and 2022, Cruz and his fellow conservatives might want to give their keyboards a break.

Leave the Twitter dunks and meme wars to those of us who dont cash paychecks from the American taxpayers.

Furthermore, if youre going to tweet, at least know your audience. While Donald Trump spent plenty of time on Jack Dorseys app, he didnt try to appease his haters. If anything, he trolled the left knowing they were going to hate him even more.

But Trump, unlike some of these Republican leaders, welcomed the idea that people loathed him. In politics (and in life) you have a big edge if you can just accept the fact some of your detractors will never like you.

Some people will always think youre racist or evil simply because you challenge their ideas.

But most Republicans, despite the Democrats glaring disdain for them, perpetually want their Sally Fields Oscar moment in the sun.

Its never going to happen. Listen closely Republican pols: They hate you they really hate you.

The sooner you accept it, the better off we will all be.

Cruz and company need to stop reaching for that strange new respect from Hollywood and the media and the Democrat stars.

Remember John McCain? When he was running in 2008 against more conservative Republicans, the press raved about the maverick. But once McCain got the GOP nod and was running against their hero Obama, the press turned on a dime.

It was ever thus.

Republicans are never going to get chairs at the cool kids table and thats OK. The nerd table is way more fun, anyway.

More here:
Curley: Conservatives need to cut out their thirst for progressive approval - Boston Herald

Progressives Democrats have expressed skepticism that Bidens calls for utility and bipartisanship on a coronavirus relief deal will bear legislative fruit. Moderates have called for patience to allow more time for centrists to come on board. Key unemployment benefits expire in mid-March.

Both Jayapal and fellow progressive Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who joined the event, had little appetite for bipartisanship.

This is not a normal time. Were trying to act like its normal, Jayapal said. I have only limited tolerance for a Republican party that wrings its hands and talks about unity and moving forward. We had an insurrection where their leader of their party incited that insurrection and many of them continue to support him.

Without getting a bold, progressive agenda through, Jones said Thursday he thinks that Democrats will lose a slim House majority in 2022.

Theres great urgency around that, Jones said.

Despite Jayapals calls for further action, she lauded Bidens agenda so far, calling it the most progressive platform yet that weve seen in a long time. Biden has moved leftward since the beginning of his campaign, with Jayapal and other progressives pushing him to go further.

We feel very good about where hes started, Jayapal said. Hes gone a far way from when he started his campaign to where he is as president. I do think he understands the crises and the fact that this is a history-making time and a legacy-making time for him, and frankly for our country.

Jayapal was one of more than 50 House progressives, spearheaded by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who wrote a letter to Biden Thursday calling for recurring checks throughout the pandemic. The Washington lawmaker also said Thursday she would send a letter Thursday alongside Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) saying that Bidens move to end Department of Justice use of private prisons should extend to private immigration detention facilities.

Jayapal also said shes pushing Biden to cancel student loan debt, a move she said the president is trying to determine whether he has the power to make. Biden has previously signaled he wouldn't give into progressives calling for executive action to cancel debt.

With Biden calling for unity, debate has ensued about whether Democrats should use reconciliation to push through priority items with little GOP support. Republicans have called Bidens calls for unity hollow in light of some of his agenda.

Jayapal called Thursday for Congress to use budget reconciliation, a maneuver that could pass the bill with a simple majority, to pass a proposed $15 federal minimum wage if Republicans dont get on board. Jayapal said all options should be on the table, including overruling the Senate parliamentarian if they determine reconciliation isnt the proper avenue for some legislation.

Jones called for the end of the filibuster and called for Biden to continue to use executive action to address issues.

This moment is our generations Reconstruction. We have to get Reconstruction right this time around, Jones said.

Read the original here:
Jayapal pushes Biden to go further on progressive priorities - POLITICO

Ever since I arrived in the United States to begin my university education in 1982, I have been baffled by arguments used by white (and some Black and Latino) American progressives, leftistsand socialists to justify voting for Democratic presidential and congressional candidates.

Unlike mainstream liberal and conservative Americans, who believe their country is Gods gift to the world, the arguments of progressives often stress that Democrats are the lesser evil of the two contending parties.

The Democratic commitment to the rich was made amply clear with the major subsidies given to them by Clinton and Obama

Many agree that, in the words of Gore Vidal: There is only one party in the United States, the Property party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinairein their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt - until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

Still, progressives always proceed according to the lesser evil theory. If I raised the question of US imperial policy, dubbed foreign policy in the US liberal mainstream media, I would be told by the more astute progressives that both parties were equally imperialist, and therefore their vote for the Democrats was justified by distinctions in their domestic policies.

Still, because the elected Democratic presidents after Ronald Reagan, namely Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, were as neoliberal as Reagan and proceeded with his agenda of mercilessly dismantling the US welfare state, I remained at a loss as to what magnitude of difference existed between the two parties.

The more class-conscious socialists assured me that they were under no illusions that either party defended the white poor, let alone the downtrodden, impoverished racial minorities of Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans. Indeed, they insisted that both parties defended the rich, with the Democrats also defending the middle class in a limited way, although that commitment had declined measurably since the Clinton years.

Sowhat, I asked, are the essential benefits to middle-class Americans that you are defending as progressives, socialistsand leftists? Their sober responses highlighted issues of healthcare, social securityand womens reproductive rights. I replied that all of the above had been weakened by the neoliberal Democrats.

Support for womens right to abortion declined considerably when the Clinton administration declared that abortions should be safe, legaland rare. Obama acknowledged the arguments of pro-lifers and called for reducing the demand for abortion, while Joe Biden, until his recent campaign, was a regular supporter of the 1976 Hyde Amendment (he changed his position in 2019), which prohibits federal healthcare programmes from directly funding abortion procedures except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape.

As for Social Security, a bipartisan effort began the war on it in a set of 1983 congressional amendments, which Reagan signed into law. Both Clinton and Obama attempted to cut Social Security and government health benefits to Americans during their respective administrations, but were prevented from doing so by the Monica Lewinsky scandal in Clintons case, and public opposition in Obamas.

As for health services, attempts to offer universal healthcare to all Americans were obstructed by Clinton and later Obama, who adopted a Republican plan to subsidise private, for-profit health insurance companies, rebranded as Obamacare, and who paved the way for the horror that Americans found themselves in with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US empire is falling apart. But things can always get worse

Oscar Rickett

While President Donald Trump also proposed cutting health benefits, which he did not do, anti-Trump propagandists accused him of proposing to cut Social Security, which he never did.

What about the Democratic policies of enriching the rich? Yet again, the party's commitment to the rich was made amply clear with the major subsidies given to them by Clinton and Obama. The latter subsidised them to the tune of $350bn in his bailoutof the banks at the expense of middle-class homeowners whose houses were foreclosed upon. Obama did not hold Wall Street firms accountable for the economic meltdown, which followedClintons 1999 repeal of New Deal-era banking regulations, but rewarded them instead.

So what justifies progressive, leftistand socialist Americans voting for the Democrats as the lesser evil? Is it ideological blindness, or attachment to the cosmetic political language of Democratic politicians, whose actions might have been worse than Trumps, but whose style of delivery tends to be kinder and gentler?

Why did the policies of Clinton,which transformed the criminal justice system in 1994 to expand the mass incarceration of African Americans, not cause a public outcry amongliberals? Indeed, it was none other than Biden who helped to write the crime bill - thesame Biden who opposed the racial integration of schools in Delaware back in the 1970s. And what about Kamala Harris, the grand incarcerator,who may succeed Biden in the2024 election, assuming he does not step down due to ill health before then?

America Last: Coming to terms with the new world order

Why did Obamas deportation ofmillions of illegal immigrants not garner the kind of popular opposition that Trumps policy, which is a mere continuation of Obamas atrocities, has encountered? While the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Obama in the courts, such legal opposition never translated into a public outcry against the Deporter-in-Chief.

Why was there no outrage over the fact thatit was only in the last few months of Obamas eight-year term that his Justice Department finally prosecuted one lone white cop for the racist murder of an African American?

In four years, Trumps Justice Department did not prosecute a single white killer-cop, but this was a continuation of Obamas practices. Yes, Obamas Justice Departmentpursued pattern of practice investigations against police departments, whichTrumpdiscontinued- but that is hardly a major achievement on Obamas part.

And, yes, the so-called Muslim ban - yet another of Trumps racist policies against some Muslim-majority countries -whichpeople forget was based onalist of countriesprepared by none other than Obama.

A legitimate feeling of horror was expressed on account of the 13 federal executions of convicted criminals carried out by the Trump administration in recent months, but these were never compared with the thousands of people that Obama killed by checking targets off his weekly drone kill list. Does it not matter to US progressives and leftists that unlike his Democratic predecessors, Trump, while continuing some of the subcontracted wars that Obama started - and presiding over a rise in civilian deaths as a result of US actions -did not launch a single new all-out war on some hapless country?

There is no such thing as American 'foreign' policy when US power controls the entire globe, making foreign policy 'domestic' policy

Could all these people who voted for Biden (slightly more than half of those who voted) -especially the benighted, white liberal intelligentsia - not know that many of the things they complained about during Trumps rule were in fact done by their own beloved liberal presidents?

Most of them know, and their campaign against Trump was nothing but hypocrisy for the sake of propaganda, so that the poor and downtrodden would believe that Trump was evil while Obama, Clinton, Biden and Harris were good -or at least, the "lesser evil.

In my conversations with progressive, leftistand socialist Americans over the decades, I have tried to point out that the US is not just the leader of the world, as asserted by liberal and conservative Americansequally committed to US jingoism, but that the US has been since 1991 the primary ruler of the world.

I explain to them thatas US citizens, they are the only people on Earth who have the right to vote for a government that rules the entire globe, and that they are thus complicit in American imperial crimes when they decide, based on some illusory domestic agenda of the lesser evil, to vote for a government that would launch wars and kill hundreds of thousands of people. I add that there is no such thing as American foreign policy when US power controls the entire globe, making foreign policy domestic policy.

Like their liberal and conservative patriotic and imperialist compatriots, many progressive and socialist Americans are not moved by such arguments. Indeed, they enjoin poor white Americans (the deplorables as former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called them), along with downtrodden Black, Latinoand Native American communities to join them in celebrating the Biden victory.

Why do they expect these Americans to celebrate with them, let alone the rest of the Third World - where millions have been killed by US firepower and covert operations since 1945, in wars launched by both Democratic and Republican leaders- when they know the US will probably initiate more wars against them? The reason is that these progressive and leftist Americans, like their liberal and conservative compatriots, are beneficiaries of theracist, classistand imperialist US system, which has always prevented them from seeking any real radical change.

The most they are willing to do is vote for a leftist imperialist Democrat, such asBernie Sanders-who, like them, commits to changing very little, yet presumably also represents the lesser evil.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

See the article here:
The myth of the 'lesser evil': Why US progressives back Biden - Middle East Eye